Pulse-pounding and tense… A thrill from start to finish.
Paine hits all the right notes with this latest suspense thriller featuring a pair of siblings struggling to escape a dangerous killer. Things have always been hard for Charly Highsmith, but she’s a survivor. Abandoned by her parents, she spends her teens years on the dangerous streets of Denver, Colorado, looking after her autistic brother Jacob. When Charly inherits her father’s estate, including a rustic cabin high in the Rocky Mountains, revisiting the past with her cousins Amanda and Cam seems like a good idea. As the siblings set out for the cabin, they have no clue they will get entrapped in a sinister game of life-and-death. With a hunter on their trail and snow storm raging, escape becomes a distant possibility. Paine gradually and brilliantly unravels the narrative’s seemingly impossibly tangled strands, delving into the Highsmiths’ tragic past—how a single decision has destroyed the whole family, leaving the siblings into a nightmare of homelessness, and plunging the mother into a dark pit of drugs and alcohol—and weave them together to form a satisfying whole. Throughout, he explores Charly’s complicated inner world, exploring her trauma, fear, insecurities, and desires. The suspense remains steady, and the cat-and-mouse game between the hunter and the hunted keeps the tension rising. A breathtaking climactic chase thrusts the siblings in the middle of a life-and-death situation for relentless twists and entertaining storytelling. The novel is fast-paced and suspenseful, making for a quick read, but Paine spares no punches when it comes to complexity and substance. Lovers of psychological thrillers won’t want to miss it.
THE EXCURSION
T.O. Paine
Pub date October 23, 2022
ISBN 9798986695822
Price $3.99 (USD)
